\n By The Associated Press\n <\/p>\n
Iran launched more missiles at Israel and U.S. bases as war in the Middle East<\/a> enters a sixth day. Israel announced multiple incoming attacks early Thursday and said it was intercepting the missiles.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it began new strikes against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. At least eight people were killed there late Wednesday into Thursday according to Lebanon\u2019s Health Ministry and the state news agency.<\/p>\n Tehran has warned of the destruction of the Middle East\u2019s military and economic infrastructure, and the war has rattled financial markets<\/a>, with most taking their cues from what the price of oil is doing<\/a>. Early Thursday, oil prices resumed their ascent.<\/p>\n \n People are also reading\u2026\n <\/p>\n Mideast stands at Berlin’s tourism fair are empty<\/p>\n The Iran war has cast a long shadow at the world\u2019s biggest tourism fair, the ITB, underway in Berlin.<\/p>\n Representatives from countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Israel never made it to the fair as they couldn\u2019t leave their countries due to the closed airspace.<\/p>\n Tourism operators, travel agencies and airlines are currently more concerned about how to bring tens of thousands of stranded travelers back home than trying to sell future trips to the Middle East.<\/p>\n Still, Ramzi Maaytah, the managing director of the Jordan Tourism Board, said he was positive that travel would recover quickly after the end of the war.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are optimistic that things will be settled soon, the skies will be clear and tourism will be resumed,\u201d Maaytah said.<\/p>\n Turkey condemns Iranian drone attack in Azerbaijan<\/p>\n The Turkish Foreign Ministry has called for an immediate end to the attacks which it said \u201ctarget third countries in the region and increase the risk of the war spreading.\u201d It added that Turkey would continue to stand by its ally, Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the drone attacks with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov.<\/p>\n A day earlier, NATO forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Iran that was heading toward the Turkish airspace.<\/p>\n UN peacekeepers say combat underway in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops move in<\/p>\n U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon say they have seen and heard clashes, including ground combat, in southern Lebanon as more Israeli forces have moved across the border.<\/p>\n \u201cGround combat was observed west of Kfar Kila,\u201d a village near the border with Israel, overnight, which included \u201cfiring of shots,\u201d said Tilak Pokharel, spokesperson for the mission known as UNIFIL.<\/p>\n In the town of Khiyam, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli border, he said, peacekeepers saw \u201cair attacks and flares and heard explosions.\u201d<\/p>\n Iranians rally in Romania in support of the US-Israeli campaign<\/p>\n Members of the Iranian community rallied in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, on Thursday, holding up posters of Iran\u2019s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, as well as Israeli and American flags.<\/p>\n \u201cMake Iran Great Again \u2026 Thank you Mr. President,\u201d read one poster, a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Abdolreza Heidari, one of the rally\u2019s organizers, told The Associated Press that it’s \u201ca war that people wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n Mehrbod, a student who only gave his first name because of fears for his loved ones back home said his grandparents and friends are in Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t get in touch with them very well because they can\u2019t connect to the internet,\u201d he said. \u201cLast time I talked to them, they were OK. They have hope that something will change because the regime now is at its weakest point.\u201d<\/p>\n Azerbaijan says 4 people injured in Iranian drone attack<\/p>\n The office of Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General said four airport workers were injured in the Iranian drone attack on Nakhchivan, two more than earlier reported. Nakhchivan is a landlocked autonomous exclave of Azerbaijan that borders Iran.<\/p>\n It said the attack inflicted \u201csignificant damage\u201d to an administrative building of the Nakhchivan airport, and a flight to Nakhchivan from Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, was diverted back for security reasons.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan\u2019s Defense Ministry decried Iran\u2019s denial of the attack and said it \u201ccan in no way be considered acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n The ministry said Iran fired four drones in the direction of Nakhchivan, including one at a school where classes were underway, and demanded Iran apologize for the attack.<\/p>\n Japanese rugby player in Bahrain endures sleepless nights<\/p>\n Kenta Kutsuna, a professional Japanese rugby player with the Bahrain Rugby Football Club, has had sleepless nights as missile alerts ping on his phone and air sirens wail every few hours since the war began last weekend.<\/p>\n From the balcony of his apartment in Al Janabiyah, west of the Bahrain capital of Manama, Kutsuna has witnessed attacks on a U.S. military base. A warplane hit a skyscraper, a drone smashed into a residential building, and a barrage of missile interceptors launched from the U.S. base, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAll I could do was to pray,\u201d he said in a video interview with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n When sirens go off, he gathers with his teammates in a windowless living room. He mostly stays indoors, away from the windows with the curtains drawn, venturing out only briefly when he needs groceries.<\/p>\n Japan is arranging chartered flights to Tokyo for its citizens, but Kutsuna plans to stay with his teammates, working out indoors to be ready when matches resume.<\/p>\n Israeli army issues mass evacuation warning for Beirut suburbs<\/p>\n The Israeli military issued an evacuation notice Thursday calling for all residents of Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs to \u201csave your lives and evacuate your homes immediately,\u201d apparently signalling plans for heavy bombardment of the area.<\/p>\n Since the resurgence of hostilities between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, Israel has struck sites in Beirut\u2019s suburbs and issued a blanket warning for residents of southern Lebanon south of the Litani River to evacuate their homes. But it had not issued a blanket evacuation order for areas outside of Beirut\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n After the attacks by the U.S. and Israel on Iran triggered a new war in the Middle East, Hezbollah launched missiles and drones into Israel Monday for the first time in over a year, and Israel has retaliated with bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs.<\/p>\n Seventy-seven people have been killed and more than 83,000 people displaced in Lebanon by the renewed conflict.<\/p>\n France, Italy and Greece agree to coordinate deployment of military assets to Cyprus and Eastern Mediterranean<\/p>\n The three countries will work together to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, according to a French diplomat.<\/p>\n The decision was announced Thursday after French President Emmanuel Macron called Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The diplomat spoke anonymously in line with government practices.<\/p>\n Noting that the Suez Canal and the Red Sea were under strain, Macron said earlier this week that France was taking the initiative to build a coalition to bring together the necessary means, \u201cincluding military ones,\u201d to restore and secure traffic through these maritime routes.<\/p>\n Supply of food to 50 million people in Gulf affected by blocked ports, group says<\/p>\n The war in the Middle East has blocked access to major ports in the Gulf region, impacting the supply of food to over 50 million people in a region highly dependent on agricultural imports, a ship-spotting platform said Thursday.<\/p>\n